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Infection and Immunity, December 2004, p. 7330-7333, Vol. 72, No. 12
0019-9567/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.72.12.7330-7333.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Departments of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology,3 Medicine,2 Pharmacology and Cancer Biology,1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina4
Received 2 August 2004/ Returned for modification 23 August 2004/ Accepted 2 September 2004
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Previous in vitro studies reveal that the antifungal properties of fluconazole, terbinafine, and fenpropimorph against C. albicans can be synergistically enhanced by the addition of FK506 or cyclosporine (6, 10, 11, 15). These agents inhibit calcineurin, a serine/threonine phosphatase that plays a central role in calcium signaling. C. albicans mutants lacking calcineurin are hypersensitive to serum and antifungal agents that target ergosterol biosynthesis in vitro (3, 6, 15, 16), and they are attenuated for virulence in a murine model of disseminated candidiasis (1, 3, 16). Given these findings, we sought to probe the C. albicans calcineurin signaling pathways to identify substrates that might contribute to virulence and/or modulate the antifungal properties of ergosterol biosynthesis inhibitors.
The zinc finger transcription factor Crz1 has been identified as a target of calcineurin in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (12, 17). In response to extracellular stress (high salt, high temperature, cell wall damage, or mating pheromone), calcineurin dephosphorylates Crz1, promoting nuclear translocation and induction of genes encoding biosynthetic cell wall enzymes and homeostatic ion machinery (FKS2, PMR2, and PMC1) (4, 12, 17, 18). We identified the C. albicans Crz1 homolog (orf19.7359) by a BLAST search, and crz1/crz1 mutants were created by using the UAU1 cassette gene disruption approach (8). The UAU1 cassette was amplified with primers JOHE9234 (ATTTTCCCCTTTTTATATCTAAATTTCATAAATCCCAATCGTTTTCCCAGTCACGACGTT) and JOHE9235 (AGGAATAACTATCGTGAATGACAACAACCTCAAAAAAAAATGTGGAATTGTGAGCGGATA), which are homologous to the 40-bp regions flanking the CRZ1 gene. Following PCR amplification, this crz1
::UAU1 disruption allele was introduced into an S. cerevisiae strain together with a linearized vector containing the CRZ1 gene with a flanking sequence to increase the length of flanking homology through in vivo homologous recombination. The resulting crz1
::UAU1 allele was rescued in an Escherichia coli strain, released by cleavage with the restriction enzyme NotI, and transformed into C. albicans auxotrophic strain BWP17 (21) with lithium acetate (19). Ura+ Arg+ transformants were selected. Before phenotypes were assessed, the remaining histidine auxotrophy was complemented by introducing the linearized pGEM-HIS1 vector (21). A fragment containing the CRZ1 open reading frame with 1,134 nucleotides of the 5' noncoding region and 431 nucleotides of the 3' noncoding region was inserted into the pGEM-HIS1 vector, and the resulting plasmid (pCOC7) was linearized with NruI and transformed into the crz1/crz1 mutant strain to complement the crz1/crz1 mutant with a single copy of CRZ1. All mutant strains were confirmed by Southern blot analysis (Fig. 1).
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FIG. 1. Homozygous disruption of the C. albicans CRZ1 gene. (A) Schematic illustration of wild-type and disrupted CRZ1 alleles. In homozygous mutants, each CRZ1 allele is replaced by the UAU1 cassette or the URA3 gene. Hatch marks and corresponding numbers designate SpeI restriction sites relative to the start of each allele. An internal probe (probe A) recognizes CRZ1-specific sequences, while a probe with a 3'-end-flanking sequence (probe B) distinguishes between the wild-type restriction pattern and the homozygous crz1/crz1 and reconstituted mutant restriction fragments, both of which contain UAU1 and URA3 alleles at the CRZ1 locus. (B) Confirmation of crz1/crz1 mutant strains. SpeI-digested genomic DNA from parent strain BWP17 (wild type [WT]), two independently derived crz1/crz1 mutant strains (OCC1.1 and OCC3.8), and the CRZ1-complemented mutant (OCC7) were analyzed by Southern blotting. Probe A recognizes 1.24- and 1.32-kb fragments derived from CRZ1 in the wild-type and reconstituted mutant strains, respectively. Probe B recognizes a 1.84-kb fragment in the wild type or 4.87- and 6.28-kb fragments in the crz1/crz1 homozygous and reconstituted mutant strains, respectively.
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FIG. 2. crz1/crz1 mutant phenotypes. (A) Hypersensitivity profile. As indicated, solid YPD media contained no drug, 300 mM lithium chloride, fluconazole (50 µg/ml), or FK506 (1 µg/ml) overlaid with top agar containing 50 µg of fluconazole per ml. All plates were incubated at 30°C for 48 h. (B) Crz1 is not essential for the virulence of C. albicans. The reference strain (DAY185), the cnb1/cnb1 mutant (JRB64), the crz1/crz1 mutants (OCC1.1 and OCC3.8), and the CRZ1-complemented crz1/crz1 strain (OCC7) were used to infect groups of 10 mice each with an inoculum of 106 cells (7 mice for JRB64) by lateral tail vein injection, and survival was monitored over time. There was no significant difference in rates of survival between mice infected with the crz1/crz1 mutant strains and mice infected with the reference strain or the reconstituted mutant strain (P > 0.05). No significant difference was noted between results with the two crz1/crz1 mutant strains or between results with the reference and reconstituted strains (P > 0.05). The cnb1/cnb1 calcineurin strains were avirulent compared to all other strains (P < 0.001). Similar results were attained in a repeat experiment using an inoculum of 107 cells. Kaplan-Meier illustration and log rank statistical analysis of the survival data were performed using the PRISM 4.02 program (GraphPad Software, San Diego, Calif.).
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TABLE 1. crz1/crz1 mutants are less sensitive to fluconazole than cnb1/cnb1 mutants
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Given the differences between the in vitro phenotypes of the calcineurin and crz1/crz1 mutant strains, we tested whether these mutants also behave differently in vivo. We established a murine model of disseminated candidiasis in which outbred ICR mice received 0.2 ml of phosphate-buffered saline containing
106 cells of the reference strain, a cnb1/cnb1 calcineurin mutant strain, one of two independently derived crz1/crz1 mutant strains, or a CRZ1-complemented crz1/crz1 mutant strain via tail vein injection. Animals were monitored for signs of infection over the course of 21 days, and moribund animals were sacrificed. Neither of the two crz1/crz1 strains was attenuated for virulence compared to the wild-type reference and complemented strains (Fig. 2B). As previously demonstrated, however, the cnb1/cnb1 mutant was avirulent, and all animals infected survived the entire course of the experiment (Fig. 2B). These findings demonstrate that, unlike calcineurin, Crz1 is not essential for virulence. Thus, Crz1 is not the exclusive or primary downstream target of the C. albicans calcineurin signaling cascade responsible for pathogenicity.
In C. albicans, calcineurin is essential for survival in serum, during membrane perturbation by ergosterol biosynthesis inhibitors in vitro, and for virulence in vivo (1, 3, 6, 10, 11, 15, 16). These are all traits relevant to the ability of C. albicans to establish an ongoing infection. Our goal is to determine the links among calcineurin, virulence, and membrane stability with the intent of exploiting important factors that can contribute to improved antifungal therapies. Here, we investigated the relevance of the C. albicans Crz1 transcription factor. In S. cerevisiae, Crz1 has been extensively characterized as a primary target of calcineurin signaling in response to a variety of environmental stresses (12, 17, 18). The S. cerevisiae Crz1 protein contains an N-terminal glutamine-rich region, a PxIxIQ motif (where x is any amino acid) that serves as a docking site for calcineurin, two C2H2-type zinc finger domains, and a serine-rich region that contains a nuclear export signal (4, 12, 17, 18). These C2H2-type zinc fingers are conserved among S. cerevisiae, C. albicans, and the putative Ashbya gossypii Crz1 homologs, and sequences resembling the other motifs are present in C. albicans but have not yet been characterized. Despite sharing limited protein sequence homology with its S. cerevisiae counterpart, C. albicans Crz1 has been shown to functionally complement the calcium hypersensitivity of an S. cerevisiae crz1 mutant (M. Karababa, E. Valentino, J. Bille, and D. Sanglard, Abstr. 7th Candida Candidiasis Conf., abstr. 191, 2003). Additionally, a crz1/crz1 mutation mirrors treatment with cyclosporine by reversing the fluconazole resistance phenotype of C. albicans cka2/cka2 mutant strains (5). Taken together, these findings provide additional evidence that the C. albicans Crz1 homolog plays a role in a calcineurin-related function(s).
We have analyzed the crz1/crz1 mutants on media containing high salt concentrations or fluconazole as well as in a murine model of candidiasis. The crz1/crz1 mutants are not hypersensitive to lithium chloride, they are less sensitive to fluconazole than cnb1/cnb1 calcineurin mutants, and they are not attenuated for virulence. The differences between these two mutants reveal that targets of calcineurin other than Crz1 play an equally or more important role in C. albicans. Calcineurin may act via multiple effector proteins that cooperate to respond to membrane perturbation and serum factors in C. albicans. Additionally, the calcineurin-dependent pathways for virulence and for responses to antifungal agents appear to be functionally distinct and may even be unrelated. The next challenge will be to identify calcineurin targets that act independently of or in concert with Crz1 to influence the cellular responses to stress and the host environment in the important human fungal pathogen C. albicans. Other calcineurin targets, such as Hph1 and Hph2, have been identified in S. cerevisiae since the discovery of Crz1 (9). However, as is evidenced by the present work, the functions of C. albicans homologs will need to be explored in C. albicans itself and not extrapolated from the model yeast system.
This study was supported by RO1 grants AI41937 and AI42159 from the NIH/NIAID to Joseph Heitman and in part by NIH supplement AI050438-04S1 from the NIAID to Chiatogu Onyewu. Chiatogu Onyewu is a 2004 UNCF/Merck Graduate Fellow. Joseph Heitman is an associate investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Burroughs Wellcome Scholar in molecular pathogenic mycology.
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